The Valkyrie Option

by Markus Reichardt

  ‘You will forgive me for being so blunt but I do not see how these proposals could be received by the governments of England, France or America in any formal way.’

  ‘Adam, we understand your predicament. Clearly the first approach has failed and now the military option appears to be the one everyone is looking to once more. But we would welcome your support in approaching our friends and relatives across western Europe, those that still speak to us and sound them out about peace negotiations.’

  ‘So what would you like from me?’

  Transport, diplomatic passports and some form of introductory letter would be all.’

  Adam glanced again at the titles of the discussion documents before him. Most likely they would bore their foreign friends to sleep. And yet there was a chance, ever so small a chance that they could reach someone in a position of influence and get some pompous bastard with influence interested. If they could even get talks about talks going, it would take a lot of pressure off the western front.

  ‘Where do you intend to go?’

  ‘We are hoping to go via Switzerland and Sweden to Portugal and Ireland. In all of those places we know people who again could provide introductions. Our obvious destination would be England. ‘

  ‘Helmuth, be realistic, they’ll never let you in.’

  ‘They do not have to, as long as our letters get through. I agree that the Churchill cabinet is unlikely to want to speak to us. But it would possibly be open to reading the correspondence we might enter into with our contacts in the British establishment, unofficially of course. ‘

  ‘We don’t have months to make things like this happen, Helmuth.’ Adam was beginning to doubt the viability of the venture all over again. ‘ There is no time for theoretical friendly chats about future councils of Europe.’

  The young nobleman leaned forward, eyes intent. ‘I disagree. I think that the leaders of the exile governments of Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and others would be very interested in our ideas, particularly as the Red Army starts occupying the Balkans. Should they engage with us, that would eventually make it more difficult for England not to.’

  Adam still thought it was a long shot but there were other things on his plate. ‘Very well send me the details of everyone who wants to visit the fleshpots of Switzerland, Sweden and wherever else you want to go. I’ll make sure that they get the necessary passports, papers and plane tickets.’ Privately he thought this at least in part a futile gesture. The English establishment had not listened in those dark days of 1937 and 1938 when there had been a real chance of stopping Hitler. Then as now England had stood aside, leaving the conspirators isolated. Brave souls such as the Kordt brothers posted in the German embassy in London in the mid and late 1930s had been used by the Foreign Office whom they had approached with information about the resistance to gather intelligence; but their claims of an active resistance capable of acting against the NS-regime had always been ignored, their pleas for political support sidestepped. Adam felt this time would be no different but these were extraordinary times and if there was a chance, however small, it had to be tried. It was his duty to try.

  Four days later three groups of ‘Kreisauers’ left Germany. One group very publicly took up residence in Switzerland, another went on to Stockholm where they were hosted by Swedish industrialists. The last headed for Portugal via Spain. In each location they took out newspaper adverts and began to circulate.

  Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far ?

  Churchill after watching a RAF film of the bombing of a German city 1943

  July 27th

  London

  After two days of nearly climbing the walls in his High Wycombe command centre, Harris had a last go at Portal who stuck to repeating Churchill’s instruction. Informal approaches to other British Air Marshalls such as Tedder, made as subtle as Harris bulldog habits allowed, had also yielded nothing in the face of the Prime Minister’s instruction. Worse for the moment, Harris also could not go around Portal directly to Churchill. Although Bomber Command had speedily repaired most of the damage inflicted by the German raid, it would take weeks, if not months to rebuild some of the shattered units and train the new crews. Harris had no intention of sitting by inactive while history progressed without him. Once he had realised that he could not get past Churchill’s instruction with Portal, he changed tack and returned to Spaatz offer of participating in the targeted attacks on military targets. To this Portal could offer no opposition.

  Harris discussion with Spaatz and Doolittle was almost perfunctory but just enough to get approval for Bomber Command participation in the attacks on communications and transport targets. Ever since Rommel had started moving American bombers had started ripping up key railways feeding from France and Belgium eastwards through Germany in order to curtail the movement of German troops away from the western front for deployment against Stalin. Conducted in daylight these raids were exacting a terrible toll on the population along these routes but Spaatz was comfortable that he was staying within his military target definition. The French under De Gaulle were not quite so enthusiastic about his collateral damage and were beginning to edge towards open opposition on this policy.

  Shortly after Harris had talked with his American counterparts he had received a list of transportation targets. From among them he chose the Rhine railway bridges at Strasbourg-Kehl and Mulheim-Mulhouse. Their destruction would sever the railway crossings between Germany and France along the southern half of their border. Leaving the Americans in the belief that the attack would take place in daylight he reverted to his old habits and sent 370 bombers divided into two groups in a night-time raid against the two heavily defended bridges. To deflect criticism the paperwork stipulated a day-time flight but Harris instructed his commanders to manufacture some reasons for delaying take-off until closer to the normal Bomber command times. The target order specified that the bridges and surrounding targets of opportunity should be attacked.

  German radar picked up the force once it crossed over Belgium but took no action until it approached the German border near Trier. To the German’s surprise the force proceeded south over French territory splitting up near Nancy. Mosquito pathfinders lit up the targets as the bombers came in at high altitude raining down blockbuster bombs on the bridges and their surroundings. At the southern target bridge, the small town on the German side, Mulheim disappeared in a firestorm while one of the two bridges escaped harm. Four-hundred and fifty German civilians and nearly a hundred and twenty former forced labourers, waiting their turn to return home westwards died in the conflagration. Even the Americans would have considered this ‘acceptable collateral damage’. But at the Strasbourg – Kehl crossing Harris luck ran out. As the force approached Strasbourg night fighters caught up with the bombers downing three of them in quick succession. A heavy flak concentration, especially on the German side scattered the bombers as they came in from the west causing many of them to mistake the fires caused by the downed bombers as the target area. Also with the instruction of attacking targets of opportunity and desensitized to bombing towns, they released their bombs at high altitude over the town of Strasbourg. Many of Bomber Commands pilots also did what they always had done in the absence of technology that allowed pinpoint targeting, they started releasing their loads almost as soon as they came within the approximate location of their target. Strasbourg’s historic city centre and one of its residential suburbs took a heavy pounding. In the city centre the wooden structures caught fire and it would the heroic efforts of some under strength fire fighting units that prevented even heavier loss of life and home. Nevertheless nearly 700 French civilians died. Another 4700 lost their homes. The Strasbourg – Kehl bridges were damaged but remained serviceable. Flak brought down only four of the bombers.

  As the bombers turned back Kammhuber tried to repeat his previous success and sent a force of forty-eight long range night fighters hastily refuelled at Belgian and Dutch airfields into the retreating stream of Lancas
ters and Stirlings. To make their task easier he sent ahead a small force of special Me210s fitted with the ‘Schraege musik’ cannons – which fired back and upwards at an angle thereby eliminating the night fighters need to close with the bomber at angles where the bombers machine gun defences could easily be brought to bear. This effort achieved almost nothing and it left the crews too jumpy for complete surprise when the second force closed in. The Germans also had to contend with harassment from a covering Mosquito force which deflected a third of them, downing four. Nevertheless at two airfields they caught their prey at the right moment and took their toll ripping into the taxing bombers on the ground just as the last of the squadrons came in to land. Thirty-eight heavy bombers were destroyed outright killing most of their crew, while another 52 were damaged. Added to the nine that had been downed over Europe Bomber Command had to write off nearly 15% of the attacking force. The next morning Harris confronted a Bomber Command body count in excess of 400. German losses were 33 planes including their crews.

  The next morning German propaganda had a field day. For the politically naïve Harris had not bothered to familiarize himself with the new Berlin Government’s concessions under which Germany’s western borders had immediately reverted to 1938 status, nullifying Hitler’s annexation of Elsas-Lorraine on the West bank of the Rhine. Harris had in effect attacked a French town. One of the casualties was the German-appointed mayor of Strasbourg, his deputy was French-speaking and very vocal. The fact that Mulhouse, nearly twenty kilometres to the west of the Rhine had also not escaped punishment had not helped. That evening the De Gaulle’s Government sent a protest note to the British cabinet calling for an enquiry. The Germans meanwhile continued to pour the tragic stories of the Strasbourg victims onto the world’s front pages, eager to show the world the reality of ‘terror bombing.’. In the White House, Admiral Leahy angrily tossed his newspaper aside muttering ‘murdering idiot.’

  The news reached Churchill during an unusually early meeting with the war cabinet. This proved critical for the discussion that followed was dominated by civilians rather than military men, even though Alanbrooke who was there for a briefing tried to calm tempers. In the end Churchill was asked to consider the resignation of Harris which he did, after a few discreet enquiries revealed that the verbal version of Harris order to ‘attack targets of opportunity’ had been transmitted in a way that had placed Strasbourg’s civilians on an even par as targets as the bridges. The next day Harris left High Wycombe which had been his work home for two years in fury and disgust. Subsequently a few uncontrolled outbursts of which one was recorded in the press ensured that he would never again hold command. Churchill did however spare him a commission of enquiry.

  July 28th

  The Kremlin, Moscow

  Ever since the 1930s Stalin had gotten into the routine of driving the 15 minutes’ drive from his forest dacha in the Kuntsevo district to the office by late afternoon. There he would attend meetings, receive people and work until midnight before returning home. The STAVKA meeting that day started his series of Kremlin meetings and was brief. There was no offensive German action to report. Only a continuation of the mopping up of the straggler units ravaged by the Soviet advance into central Poland. The Soviet Bagraton offensive which had been so successful in ripping apart the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Center in Belorussia was gradually running out of steam. Not that it mattered. According to STAVKA calculations more than 26 German division had been completely destroyed in the past month. More than a quarter of a 350 000 Germans were either dead or in Russian prisoner of war camps. While in Poland the Red Army was approaching Warsaw, in the Balkans it was beginning to enter Rumanian and Bulgarian territory. The Germans had completely lost the strategic initiative and were unlikely to regain it. Stalin smiled as he headed back to his office, his Marshall’s uniform which he normally only wore on parades shining in the sunlight that shone through the high Kremlin corridor windows. Now it was time to think about a time after the war. Behind him the hulking MVD chief, Lavrentin Beria scurried as usual. The meeting ahead did not require the presence of Molotov or Zhukov just yet.

  Waiting outside the dictator’s offices stood a tall man with dark hair and an impossible flock of uncombed hair which descended along the entire length of his chin. Academician Igor Kurchatov was in charge of the Soviet nuclear research programme and he had come to present his regular update. Normally this would have been to Beria alone but this time Stalin had insisted that he be present.

  The presentation was short and to the point. Kurchatov, though not intimidated by Stalin deftly avoided getting too technical and detailed and instead sought to focus on the challenges ahead. Since his appointment as head of the programme in 1942 he had learnt never to promise anything he could not deliver.

  ‘So you are telling me it will take 5 years to do this on our own.’ Josef Stalin pushed the paper away. Across the table Beria, bespectacled, balding and possibly the most feared man in Russia was sweating. Next to him Kurchatov with his impossible beard remained quite in the presence of these two monsters. There was little space for an academician to speak, even if he as Kurchatov was, the head of the Soviet Union’s effort to build a nuclear weapon.

  Russian nuclear research had a history that predated Communism but in the first half of the twentieth century it had been the British and Germans who had forged ahead. Soviet science had stagnated but kept up at a theoretical level. After the outbreak of the war much of the new information had come from Beria’s spies, primarily the English traitor John Cairncross who had first alerted the Soviets to the possibility of an allied atomic bomb using uranium isotopes. In 1942 the Soviet physicist Georgy Flerov had alerted his colleagues to the possibility of a German or American uranium bomb. In the end he had even written to Stalin himself and that had gotten things rolling; by the end of the year there was a formal body reviewing the intelligence reports from the UK and the US as well as all Soviet capabilities. In 1943 there had been a shift away from the exclusive focus on uranium isotope separation. Material forwarded by over a dozen American spies and the scientist of the British Ring of Five, the KGB’s most important assets in the Allied camp, had pointed to the possibility of using plutonium.

  However, even this option was laborious and a workable weapon, or even a limited capability was years away. Stalin and Beria, who had assumed control over the project in 1942 had kept close tabs of the work and had never stinted in allocating additional, often massive resources required by the Soviet scientists to replicate the English advances. At Beria’s prompting they forwarded specific requests for nuclear information to the British spy ring; how were the separation co-efficients of the centrifugal separation calculated; how would the yield and neutron diffusion of a weapon be established; how big did the reactor have to be that produced the nuclear fuel from which weapons grade material would be made. The latter question was key to establishing the critical mass of uranium or now plutonium needed for a weapon. And Kurchatov via Beria had just delivered the dictator sobering news that as far as the information from the spies in British and American research establishments concerned the Soviet Union was unlikely to develop a nuclear weapon in the present circumstances. It simply did not have a decent supply of the raw material. It would need to acquire that by conquest, since it was unlikely the Americans would allow acquisition through trade, it would have to be conquest. Apart from a mine in the Belgian Congo, the only source within reach was in south-eastern Germany and northern Czechoslovakia.

  Well we will just have to do better, won’t we Comrades. A slight nod from both assured the dictator that he had their attention. There will have to be other ways, Academician Kurchatov, as I understand the science the plutonium route does appear to release the achievement of such a weapon from access to uranium. ?

  Only partially Comrade General Secretary, there is still a need for source material although in a smaller amount.

  ‘Well … Stalin smiled at Beria, then it will be up to the MVD to pr
ocure it. Get some people to that miserable hole in the ground in the dark continent and see that we acquire enough material, trade what you must. In the meantime get the geologists from the Ministry of Mines moving; they must redouble their efforts to discover a source within our own border. It is inevitable that they will find it. They must only show sufficient diligence. The dialectic is on our side. The Revolution would never have succeeded in the Rodina only to be brought down over such a development. Scientific study allowed Marx and Engels to discover the true elements of Marxism and the strength of the underlying dialectic that guides history. Science has made this weapon possible and it will not work at cross-purposes to the dialectic.’

  Stalin’s grip on Marxist theory was shallow, his own summarized treatise on the topic rather bland but not as theoretically dense as Lenin’s tomes. Kurchatov looked unconvinced. In fact Marxist theory had served Stalin only insofar as it constituted a weapon with which to purge rivals and potential opponents. Beria’s grasp on the matter was just as shallow and thus the two Georgians understood each other. It was power, raw murderous power that counted and that came from clarity of will.